Program

Want a More Entrepreneurial Academic Library? First Escape Your Culture

Why didn’t Kodak or Polaroid create Instagram? They had the engineers. They had the technology. They had photography expertise. They also had a corporate culture that hampered their ability to imagine socially networked, mobile photography. Established organizations often fail at entrepreneurial ventures because their entrenched culture constrains their innovation capacity. True entrepreneurs seldom encounter entrenched rules, policies or traditions to hold them back. The entrepreneurial versus the entrenched is now playing out in higher education. While traditional institutions struggle with affordability, accountability and learning challenges, a disruptive Alt-Higher Ed industry is emerging with an economical, convenient and agile approach to learning. In this talk Steven Bell, ACRL president and Associate University Librarian for Research and Instructional Services at Temple University, will share ideas on what it means to be an entrepreneurial academic librarian and the challenge of escaping the constraints of our organizational culture. To encourage more entrepreneurial cultures in academic libraries, we may need to evolve as Alt-Librarians better adapted to the new Alt-Higher Ed landscape.

10:20 am – 10:40 am

Break, Coffee, Poster Sessions

10:40 am – 11:30 am

Second speaker – Naomi House

“I”dentity: Building a Brand by Bucking the Crowdsourcing Trend

Librarians often work in highly collaborative and collegial environments. Team players, teamwork and team spirit are qualities we look for in supervisors, coworkers and applicants. Our online catalogs often allow catalog records to be tagged by anyone. We appreciate the collective intelligence that crowdsourcing can bring to the table. We thrive on cooperation and input from others. We learn to serve better because we listen to what our users say they want and from this we ascertain what it is they really need. However, when building a service or personal brand online we have to resist the urge to take everyone’s opinions (given freely and often and without even being asked for) with the same weight or importance as your own. Developing your vision means not making quick changes without thinking through the repercussions. It means social media outreach but not spreading yourself too thin on too many platforms. It means planning out what you want it to be and sticking with that. It means remembering that there is no “team” in “I.” Naomi House learned this on the fly building INALJ.com into the service she wished she had had as a job seeker. She will present a brief history of building INALJ, the nuts and bolts of how she did it, the tools and tricks and most significantly, she will share the importance of “I” in the process.

11:30 am – 12:40 pm

Lunch

12:40 pm – 1:10 pm

Third Speaker – Stephanie Walker

Commercialization Is Not A Dirty Word: Using Library Entrepreneurship to Begin Addressing Budget Needs

Libraries have been hit by the dual whammy of poor economic times/declining budgets and increases
in technology needs and user expectations. How do you cope? At Brooklyn College, we had long been
addressing the latter by turning to our Academic IT unit, and their creativity, and having programmers
and designers work side-by-side with librarians to develop products that meet our needs. We openly
shared many of these within our community. When we were hit by severe budget cuts, we turned
to the idea of commercialization, selling some of our proven products and services, including a book
scanner that costs half the price of other commercial scanners, and a hosting service for library
websites, resources, and services. Both of these products have been strikingly successful, though it is
still “early days”. This case study details our experience, our successes, and the challenges we faced.

1:10 pm – 2:00 pm

Fourth Speaker – Lisa Carlucci Thomas

Designing the Imperative: Transformative Culture

Today’s innovative leaders employ dynamic methods for maximum results, continuously evolving and adapting to the forces of social and technological advancement. Learn how experimentation, evaluation, and organizational agility promote engagement and creativity, transform products and services, and deliver enhanced value to customers. Explore leading trends and initiatives as libraries and information partners develop new strategies to surprise, delight, and inspire.

2:00 pm – 2:15 pm

Break, Poster Sessions

2:15 pm – 3:05 pm

Fifth Speaker – Maureen Sullivan

Creating a Culture of Innovation

Maureen Sullivan will discuss the importance of innovation in academic libraries; what it takes to create a culture that fosters innovation and risk-taking; and what individuals can do to be more entrepreneurial in their practice. She also will describe the evolution of her career and offer lessons from her own experience.